Paige slid him a mug of coffee and then made a plate for herself and sat beside him.
“Bless you,” he said, taking a sip.
“I’m fueled mostly by coffee, so I assumed you probably were, too. You want some creamer?”
“No, black is good. This is excellent coffee.”
“It’s the same stuff we get at the Cat Café. It’s from a little place that does its own coffee roasting right here in Brooklyn.”
Josh grinned. “You know, you spend a lot of time making fun of the hipster guys in Brooklyn, but isn’t being pretentious about coffee on the first page of the hipster handbook?”
She had the presence of mind to look a little embarrassed. “Well, I guess we all have our eccentricities.”
Josh left a little while later without showering, preferring to do that at home. But there had been a whole series of long, lingering kisses and, “No, really, I have to go…” but he had no regrets about that. He probably shouldn’t make a habit of Paige delaying his leaving for work, but he could do it every now and then.
He was delighted to realize how close they lived to each other; once he got to the Barclays Center, he knew the rest of the way home. He caught himself humming as he walked home in the early morning, as the sun rose. Hardly anyone was out this early, which made the walk home fairly easy.
It reminded him of when he’d first arrived in Georgetown. He’d found a little apartment near the waterfront that was a shoebox but had a spectacular view. He’d get up in the morning sometimes and go out for coffee at a little cupcake shop near his building, then he’d walk around and explore the neighborhood. And fine, he was a morning person. He loved the time just before rush hour when things were open but the masses weren’t rushing to work yet. Such as right now.
He’d kept that Georgetown apartment for all of law school. Megan moved into it halfway through their second year. She rarely got up a second sooner than she absolutely had to, so even after she’d moved in, he’d had those mornings to himself. His heart still squeezed when he thought of Megan, not because he missed her but because the wound was still fresh. He couldn’t say he had regrets about the way his life was going now, especially when everything with Paige was going so well, but it still hurt to think he’d once imagined Meganhere, in his apartment, making it a real home and not just the barren place he slept.
* * *
When Evan sat across from Paige at Pop, he said, “I always kind of thought it was a sitcom cliché that people can tell when others have had sex, but…you totally banged Lauren’s brother again, didn’t you? You look like the cat who got the canary.”
“Oh my god. Keep it down.”
Evan grinned. “Lauren sends her regrets. It’s safe to talk.”
“Regrets? I thought she said she was coming tonight.”
“She forgot she had a doctor’s appointment or something. Although I suspect that was a lie and she’s actually making sweet love to Caleb in a closet somewhere.”
Paige screwed up her nose. “They are too much sometimes.”
“Honey, I know. But I was right about them. I take credit for their sickening happiness. So I feel a little good about that.”
Lindsay walked in then and sat across from Paige. “What a day,” she said.
“What happened?” asked Evan.
“I got an assignment to write a story on farmers’ markets, so I spent a good chunk of today researching and making phone calls about the food supply chain in New York, and it’sa lot, you guys.”
“Your job is weird,” said Evan.
Lindsay rolled her eyes. “I’m patching together a career here. It turns out there is a finite number of restaurants in New York City that need to be reviewed, so I’m branching out into other food writing. Although I might write a story on pet food for my friend’s website. There’s a hot debate about raw food diets versus the canned stuff.”
“Oh, boy,” said Paige.
“There’s something to it. I put my cat on a raw diet and—”
“You’re not going to talk about cat poop in this fine establishment, are you?” asked Evan.
“Fine.” Lindsay rolled her eyes. “What’s up with you guys?”
Evan cleared his throat and raised his glass. “Darius and I have gone on aseconddate. It seems promising.”
“Not the third date,” said Lindsay, “so I’m guessing you haven’t gotten into his pants yet.”
